cogito

cogito in philosophy, the principle (the cogito) establishing the existence of a being from the fact of its thinking or awareness.

The word in Latin means ‘I think’, and comes from the formula, cogito, ergo sum ‘I think or am thinking, therefore I am’ of the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596–1650). The formulation was first made in French, as ‘Je pense, donc je suis’ in Le Discours de la méthode (1637); it is now generally quoted from the 1641 Latin edition.

Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.